Liberals everywhere: It is time for a different kind of climate legislation.

In order for the U.S. energy economy to power itself into the future, it must develop new relationships with Wall Street. This idea may not appeal to the populist column of renewables advocates, but there are good reasons why anyone interested in avoiding climate disaster needs to be open to this idea.

For some context: When it comes to Congress, 2013 was a year of conflict and inaction. As a result, the American people faced a sixteen-day government shutdown, SNAP cuts, reductions in unemployment insurance, and partisan gridlock. The Federal government lacks the capacity to function, much less affect sweeping regulatory environmental legislation.

At the same time, the top five Wall Street firms have collectively invested tens of billions in solar, wind and energy efficiency over the last three years. They’ve lobbied Congress for extensions of key renewable energy policies. And they’ve worked to make the biggest investment portfolios in the world cleaner.

In 2013, Exxon Mobil spent over $13 million lobbying Congress. By contrast, SolarWorld, America’s largest solar manufacturer since 1975, spent only $257,000. Bolstering the efforts of renewable companies with Wall Street capital will help even the playing field in the halls of Washington.

So even though it doesn’t appear that Congress is anywhere near passing comprehensive regulatory legislation, they might be able to come together and pass more laws that incentivize private and corporate investment in renewables, efficiency, and public transportation. As it currently stands, this type of legislation tends to inspire less partisan gridlock and fewer insults aimed at environmentalists. Why? Because it has the backing of a diverse coalition that includes both pro-renewable populists and Wall Street.

And if the government cannot or will not pass the kind of regulatory legislation, it is imperative that climate concerned Americans seek out and promote other options. The hard truth is that transforming the U.S. economy from its current state into a green economy will require massive monetary investments, and that may require a change in thinking from the dedicated, creative minds of liberal environmentalists.

Do you feel a little bit dirty? Like you’re compromising your principles… sliding over to the other side? Don’t. This is one of the most effective ways of ensuring that the United States economy will transform itself into a green economy. And that is something everybody, kombucha drinking–thrift store shopping–bike riding-environmentalists included, can get excited about.

Incentivizing private investment with investment tax credits, production tax credits, and other mechanisms that work within the existing market will be the quickest and most effective way to ensure that the United States’ energy economy doesn’t get left behind.

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*This post originally stated that Wall Street firms had "collectively invested $50 billion," this has been changed to "collectively invested tens of billions"

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It seems to me that my wing of the political spectrum has reversed itself from an earlier version of the same wing: The thing that scares many of us - not me of course - is the best form of energy ever invented, nuclear energy.

When nuclear energy is discussed, many liberals can become as dogmatic and as vapid as any of the worst creationists on the right.

If, in our ignorance, we embrace solar and wind energy because we insist that they will work on scale in an affordable and environmentally responsible fashion , when clearly decades of experience shows they don’t – at least not without seriously damaging the people that traditional liberals cared about, the working class and the poor – we are fools working on belief rather than experiment.

For me, the definition of liberalism is defined by the 25th article of Eleanor Roosevelt’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as adopted by the UN in 1948 and subsequently totally disregarded by the world at large. It would seem to me that insisting that electricity rates be tripled around the world to chase a chimera that is only accessible to the richest ten percent – and by this I mean the failed, expensive and environmentally questionable so called “renewable energy” industry – is contrary to article, and thus contrary to my view of liberalism.

As a liberal, I don’t object to capitalism per se, but insist that capitalism be well regulated in such a way as the rights of workers are respected and that economic wealth include taxes that include and improve the lives of our most disadvantaged. I fully acknowledge that there are some people of extreme wealth, Bill Gates comes to mind, who, irrespective of their flaws, are laboring intensely to do good in the world.

Nuclear energy is capital intensive in the short term, but reliable and affordable in the long term. Thus every nuclear plant that is built is a gift by one generation to future generations. It would seem to me that making such a gift of long term safety and prosperity to future generations would be a signature liberal approach, but regrettably it also seems to me that on this issue, nuclear energy, liberals have chosen to mimic conservatives in precisely the worst way. There are liberals who insist that ideas are immutable; the worst case of such immutability being the insistence on the part of many, but not all, liberals that nuclear energy is “too dangerous.” This is not even a remotely supportable claim based on the more than half a century of nuclear operations, a wide array of scientific and engineering discoveries in the last 50 years, as well as the experience of recent history with the outcome of the so called “renewable energy” industry.

One of the most widely read scientific papers in recent years makes the irrefutable case that nuclear energy saves lives and protects the environment. It follows that there are many liberals who in practice are violating the signature liberal approaches that support this precisely the kind of outcome that the nuclear energy industry, built by previous generations, has provided for our generation.

From where I sit, this case represents a grotesque perversion of liberalism.

Jessica, self-avowed liberals like myself are not afraid of big money, we merely believe the idea that solar and wind can significantly transform U.S. energy is delusional, and based on a poor understanding of energy and basic science. Hence - it's just a bad investment.

Do you believe such a transformation is possible? If so, is your belief based on a solid understanding of energy fundamentals, or populist opinions which may or may not be well-informed?

Yes, the transition will require massive monetary investments. Which is exactly why fossil fuel interests will only allow tiny, inadequate window-dressing bills to pass. They need to be just green enough to advertize their virtue, but not green enough to fix the problem they are creating.

The enemy is fossil fuels. It is the ONLY enemy, the only thing we should be fighting, our only focus, our only obsession, and our only way of measuring success. Any increase in renewables is utterly useless if fossil does not decrease.